A stage to battle with the demons in you

Juliana Lazarus

In lieu of World Theatre Day on March 27, Juliana Lazarus highlights the Theatre of the Oppressed in Bangalore; a movement that was started by Brazilian Augusto Boal as an antidote to the theatre of the authoritative class that routinely used the stage as a tool to maintain its dominance

| Bangalore Mirror Bureau | Mar 23, 2014, 10.00 AM IST

Activist. Revolutionary. Actor. Radical politician. Teacher and student. But on that day in the early 1970s, in a small village in the north-east of Brazil, Augusto Boal could only stare on, speechless. His group had just performed one of those musical plays for an audience of peasants, singing out heroically, "Let us spill our blood!"

At the end of the show, a strapping peasant approached Boal with tears in his eyes: "Here's a fine thing," he said. "People like you, young people, town people, who think exactly like us. We're right with you, we also think we must give blood for our land."

"We were proud," Boal later wrote. "Mission accomplished. Our message had been received loud and clear.ButVirgilio—Iwillneverforget his name, his face, his silent tears — went on: 'Since you think exactly like us,thisiswhatwe'regoingtodo:we'll have lunch, and afterwards we'll all go together, you with your guns, we with ours, and send the colonel's bully boys packing — they've taken over a comrade's land, set fire to his house and threatened to kill his family, but first, let's eat....'"

Boal stuttered something to the effect that the guns were theatrical props, not real weapons.

"Guns which don't fire?" Virgilio asked, in astonishment. "OK, since the guns are fakes, let's chuck them. But you people aren't fakes, you're genuine,Isawyousingingabouthow blood must be spilt. You are genuine, so come with us; we have guns enough for everyone."

It was becoming increasingly difficult to explain that the guns were fake, but the intentions were not. And that if they agreed to go with Virgilio and his men, they would be more of a hindrance than a help.

"So, when you true artists talk of the blood that must be spilt, this blood you sing about spilling — it's our blood you mean, not yours, isn't that so?" Virgilio asked.

It was then that Boal realised that his actors were often proposing solutions to oppressions that they themselves had never experienced. Boal made a promise then: That he would never ask anyone to do what he himself was unwilling to do. And Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) was born.

TO PRACTITIONER IN BANGALORE Radha Ramaswamy was bitten by the Boal bug after she quit her job as a lecturer. "As a teacher, my endeavour was to look for meaningful ways to engage the students. I was always interested in theatre,but was slowly disillusioned by the fact that most of the plays we performed were rooted in the European or American context. So, we started creating our own plays. For instance, people involved in the Narmada Bachao Andolan came and told us their stories — real stories. Then, I got involved with the Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA).TherewasincreasingrestlessnessandItoldmyselfthatifwhatIam doing outside is more meaningful, why don't I do it full time?"

The life-changing moment came when she was in Pune. She attended a workshop by self-taught TO practitioner Dr Shekhar Seshadri at Mahindra United World College. This cemented what had already been in her mind for some time ever since a friend told her about TO after training in Seattle under Mark Weinblatt. Radha and her husband, Ramaswamy P S, took the flight to Seattle in June 2010. A year later, she launched the Centre for Community Dialogue and Change (CCDC), an organisation committed to the promotion of TO in education.

FORUM THEATRE While theatre can be used to educate, enlighten, and liberate, it can also be used to enslave, dominate, and perpetuate the status quo. Boal's TO was an antidote to the theatre of the dominant class that routinely used the stage as a tool to maintain its dominance. TO was also about taking on the demons within us through a variety of techniques or games.

One of the most common techniques used by TO is Forum Theatre where lines are blurred — between the stage and reality, between the actors and audience, giving rise to the concept of the spect-actor.

So, what's Forum? Let's cut back to Agartala where Radha is conducting a workshop for students of the National School of Drama (NSD). This is a state that often confronts the politics of language. The medium of instruction in government schools is Bengali, whether or not they want it to be. At NSD, the medium is English or Hindi. This again may not be the ideal situation for those who have been brought up learning in Bengali. And so, during a Forum, it is — quite understandably —language that holds centre stage.

The scene is a classroom situation where the language of oppression is Hindi and where two tribal students are mocked and laughed at for their pronunciation. They say something that sounds like motorcycle instead of watercycle.Andwhentheotherstudentslaugh,it is the laughed-at students who get punished.

Radha, the facilitator (or joker, called so for the neutral role they are supposed to play),asks the audience to identify the problem and analyse whether it really does exist in society. One of them says that the problem is real, but that they are seeing it formalized for the first time. Radha then invites a spect-actor from among them to take the stage — it is their chance to change a situation.

"But come only if you understand the situation, not because you are (or think you are) an expert who will use their head, not their heart," says Radha.

A girl volunteers. There's a round of applause for her. She goes on stage and writes 'water cycle' in Bengali. The teacher says that he can't understand it."If you don't understand it, it's your problem," the girl retorts.

The audience is divided. Some say she sounded arrogant (later the girl said that this was what one of her friends had done in a similar situation when he could no longer take it.Kitne din sahega? Ek din toot pada — How long will he bear it? One day, he just broke down).

Another boy puts up his hand and says : Stop! In Forum parlance, this means he wants to be a spect-actor. Another round of applause. The boy takes the stage and says he will write what he wants to say and not vocalise it. When the teacher asks why, the boy replies, pointing to the others, "They laugh."

The teacher, so far disdainful, falls silent, but recovers quickly and starts shouting at the laughing boys. Within the classroom space, the oppressor is back to being the protector. This is the point of intervention. Lessons learnt? To communicate without making someone lose face. That dialogue is important and that it can happen only between equals.

All through the process, the role of the facilitator is important. In fact, Boal said that facilitators are actually "difficultators" since they are supposed to bring out all the complexities. They make it more difficult so that the actors dig deeper.

Changing the oppressor would be in the realm of magic, according to Boal.But magic in real life is rare. So, you have to deal with the problem.

The point, according to Brazilian educator Paulo Friere who deeply influenced Boal, is this: Freedom will not come on a platter. The oppressed have to liberate themselves. And in doing so, they become stronger.

Spect-actors grow artistically too — if something doesn't work, they need to think of other alternatives, think on their feet. It's not only about problem-solving; it's also therapeutic and cathartic, allowing you freedom from patterns and stereotypes. Forum is actually a rehearsal for life.

Initially, Radha worked mostly with schools. But now, CCDC is trying to get into the field of medical humanities as well. Radha has conducted workshops for nearly 400 medical students and doctors so far. "The whole idea," says Radha, "is to try to de-mechanise young doctors to see notjustabody,butaperson.

They themselves are oppressed in a way.Thereisthisimageofadoctor who has to fix everything. If you confess to not knowing, you are looked upon as a failure." EMPOWERING THE WOMEN OF KARUR Radha also realises the importance of long-term engagement.She'sbeenworkingwithagroupof women in Karur since April last year, helping them to come together, share their experiences, talk about problems, learn to believe in their own capacity for change, and gradually become change agents within their families and their communities.

There's been a great deal of learning for Radha as well. "I quickly abandoned notions that had been sacrosanct before, almost like values. Notions about being punctual, or not missing sessions. For instance, I cannot talk about punctuality to Vani (name changed) who takes two buses and travels two hours to come to the training; there's just one bus every hour, so if she misses one by even two minutes, she waits a whole hour," says Radha. Or even the class structures that exist, which mean that the lower caste women will not sit when the upper caste women are present.

Of the many Forums they've done is the Bus Forum, a classic Boal structure where a woman is travelling on an empty bus late at night. A man boards and sits next to her.

"We try to come up with different solutions," says Usha, one of the women training with Radha. "Some women suggested that they should get the driver to head to the police station. Some others say that the man should be slapped. Forums help us to pool our ideas."

"It's also helped me to become a better person. Earlier, I would be very short-tempered and would talk without listening. Today, I respect the other person and give him/her the chance to speak. I react only after listening."

But most importantly, says Usha, "The workshops have helped us to start thinking."

Doctors or struggling women or students, The Oppressed Theatre is all about thinking and rethinking, breaking barriers and oppressive structures and setting yourself free.

DIFFERENT FORMS OF THEATRE Apart from Forum Theatre, Augusto Boal experimented and made popular several other types of theatre. Some of them are:

NEWSPAPER THEATRE: Where actors take newspaper articles and turn them into plays. They perform, discuss their message with the audience, and show them how to do the same with other articles. Invisible Theatre: Actors act out a play in a public place, but the audience does not realize they are watching a play; they think it's a real life situation.

LEGISLATIVE THEATRE: Boal would conduct Forums and every time, there would be a discussion on what people wanted and they would take notes. In this way, he managed to get 13 legislations passed in Brazil. This was as participatory as governance could get.

COP-IN-THE-HEAD: When Boal went to Europe, there was no external oppression, but there was a sense of alienation, oppression in relationships. The real oppression was in the head. This form of theatre helps people to confront the problems within.

RAINBOW OF DESIRE: Looks at conflict in relationships. It is far more complex because, as Boal said, "It is much more difficult to make theatre from what is hidden in your mind, maybe hidden from yourself. You do not know, so you have to go through regions in your head, which are not clear to yourself."

IMAGE THEATRE: Like other techniques, here too TO encourages us to get out of our minds and into our bodies. Participants are encouraged to form shapes with their bodies without thinking too much. The use of bodies democratizes the space. Some may be good at English, but when the language barrier is removed, everyone functions as equals.

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